The At Large “Summer of Uncertainty” begins now… I think…

As I stood in front of a class of high school journalism workshop members at lunch today, two thoughts kept bouncing around in my empty dome:

 The kids are our future.

 These kids want my job.

Far be it from me to stand in the way of progress, but if these young men and women think I’m going to sit idly by and let them take my job without a fight, I have three words for them:

Oh. Hell. No.

That’s why I’m going into hyper-drive, protecting my turf with the sort of focus, tenacity and misplaced anger normally reserved for the post-church crowd fighting over the chicken-and-dumplings at the Golden Corral buffet.

Interactive? I’m all over it.

I was the first EN blogger to talk trash in scrolling, real time. I was the first to get called on the carpet for overuse of “crap” in my blog. I’ve been so mean, I’ve made my readers — both of them — feel sorry for celebrities, politicians and other attention pigs.

And now, I’m the first to offer you a call-in show.

Yes, that’s right. A call-in show. Sorta.

First, we’ll see how the calls work out. Then, if that takes off, I’ll get to the “show” part.

Cranks, start your telephones

In my never-ending quest to do the Intertubes for cheap, I’ve found Grand Central and gotten a 210 number from them. As for the calling process, I think the box explains it all.

1. Click that box and punch in your phone number.

2. Grand Central will call you at that number

3. Grand Central will then connect you to At Large voice mail. Leave a message.

Talk about links, journalism, news, your thoughts or whatever. If you call, I have the right to use your voice on the blog. That’s not a guarantee, but rather a warning that it might happen. And if you call and embarrass yourself, I will definitely put you on the blog.

If enough people take advantage of this, we might go live with the whole process at a later date — live calls, live answers, live streaming audio.

And if no one calls, then I’ll come back, delete this blog and pretend as though it never, ever happened.

Around the Intertubes:

Bill O’Reilly trashes Tim Russert: This occurred a few weeks ago, long before Russert’s death. Still, after the accolades of politicians and opposing journalists, who have absolutely no reason to be nice about Russert, it shows you the kind of guy “O’Rly” is. Fox video, via Newshounds

I hate to keep bashing Fox, but… is that place run by racist idiots or what? Never mind. We all know the answer. They apologized. I’ll bet Klan guys apologized for those “unfortunate rope-related incidents,” too. Gawker

This hardly qualifies as news, does it? Troubled singer Amy Winehouse fainted at her London home. I hate to jump to conclusions, but I wonder if this is related to all of the crack that she smokes?